Hello first time posting here. I'm in a very desperate situation. I'm starting my second year, and I still have no project! I started with the promise of a couple of projects, after 6 months, one of the projects was not funded and died, and the other one, I have no idea, every time I asked he told me that he will tell me later, basically my first 6 months of research went mostly to the garbage, the next 6 months I was doing some programming and some thing that might be useful later, will they? I have no idea. I just submitted my first year report, with obviously a lot of problems, only added 6 months of research out of a year, also he requested me not to add some other parts because of confidentiality issues, I added a lot of last minute things cause basically my supervisor asked me to make up a project objective, also mostly guessing/making up the project plan. My supervisor is not happy with my report and ignored a request for a meeting with him, he replied an email I sent him were he just told me it was a bad report (partly my fault because of time managing issues, and I did not made some corrections in time) and did not respond to when I could meet him. What should I do? I feel disappointed, I know some other problems I had with my report are genuinely my fault, also, I'm very bad at writing, not my skill... but any way...have no idea how to proceed...

Do you have to submit your report now or can you take time to improve it?

You need to be honest with your supervisor about how you feel. Admit your mistakes, but also say that you need more support to be able to develop a project.

The report has been submitted, that's part of the problem. I still have not received a verdict from the review committee on whether I have to make corrections or is fine as it is. My supervisor is angry with me at the moment so I don't think that would help me with the review committee or will be very open to a discussion regarding my lack of project... This doesn't look very good.

Hi, Spore.

I am not sure if you will pass your milestone, but I think you have some serious supervisory problems. At this stage, there is nothing you can do but wait for the outcome and decide from there.

If you do pass, I think you need to consider if you want to be working with this supervisor for the next 3 years. To not be concern about your lack of project progress and outline for the past one year highlights a major failing of a supervisor. Couple that with what you claim are bad writing skills and poor time management, and you are in a rather difficult situation to complete your PhD. I suggest that while you are waiting, do something to improve your writing skills and think about how you can be more time efficient.